Rogue's Reform

by Marilyn Pappano

  Ethan didn’t argue the point with her because he suspected that she was right. He’d been fine on his own, but he’d never been painfully shy or afraid to open his mouth. He’d never met a stranger or found himself in a situation he couldn’t talk his way out of. He’d been a lot like his father in that respect.

  All his life he’d believed he was exactly like his father in every aspect, but it wasn’t true. He knew it. One of these days, maybe everyone else would know it, too.

  Unless he was lying to himself. Gordon had been pretty good at that, too.

  “Your turn.”

  He glanced at Grace, struck again by the changes in her. Judging by her question at the house—Do I look foolish?— she’d been the last female in Heartbreak over the age of fifteen to learn what makeup and a good haircut could do for her. And they did a lot. She could catch the eye of any man who happened to pass by, could walk into any gathering of single men and have her pick of the lot.

  She could make a better choice than him now.

  “My turn for what?” he asked, absently rubbing his chest as if he could make the dull ache that had just settled there go away.

  “Fantasies. I told you mine. What about yours?”

  He could give her any number of answers. He could tell her what he’d like to do with her and make her cheeks flush and her blood hot. He could conjure up a few teenage dreams and make her laugh. He could dig up another old fantasy or two and bring tears to her eyes. Or he could be honest and tell her the one dream he’d always had, the one that had driven him away from Heartbreak and brought him back, the one that he sometimes feared would never come true and sometimes feared would come true just so he could screw it up, the way he screwed up everything.

  “My dream was about belonging,” he said at last, gazing at the road ahead as if it required every bit of his attention. “All those times I left home, all the times I came back…I was looking for a place to belong. For people who weren’t happier without me. For people who could forgive what I was. For family.”

  “But you had family,” Grace gently pointed out.

  “I did. And I had no doubt that my mother loved me. I also had no doubt that she loved Guthrie more. That she was disappointed in me more often than not. That she agreed with everyone else that marrying my father was her biggest mistake, which made me her second-biggest mistake.”

  “You’re wrong, Ethan. She could regret marrying your father without feeling one second’s regret over having you.”

  “And you know this from personal experience,” he said quietly. “You can honestly say that your regret over sleeping with me has no effect at all on your feelings for this baby?”

  She pushed her glasses up, lifted her chin and gave him a level look. “I’ve never regretted spending that night with you.”

  “But you do regret that I’m her father.”

  This time her answer came neither as quickly nor as firmly, and that fact sent a stab of pain through Ethan. “I don’t— I regret that your reputation could make life more difficult for her.”

  “So do I.” As much as he regretted the fact that Grace remained ashamed of him. All the time they’d spent together had done nothing to alter her opinion of him. In her eyes, he was still a stigma she didn’t want their daughter bearing.

  They fell silent after that, neither of them speaking until they’d reached Tulsa. They ate lunch first—her first McDonald’s meal, she announced—then hit the stores. Though she was wide-eyed with wonder at everything available, there wasn’t an impulse indulgence in any of the bags. She’d bought bedding for her new room and for the crib, along with a handful of impossibly small blankets, sleepers and gowns. She let him add a few purchases of his own for the baby—stuffed animals, a brightly colored mobile, a teddy bear night-light that glowed faint yellow—but when he maneuvered her and the shopping cart to the maternity clothes section, she balked.

  “I don’t need any clothes,” she said, then her face flushed. “I can’t afford any right now.”

  “I can.”

  She shook her head. “You can’t buy me clothes.”

  “Why not?”

  “It’s—it’s not proper.”

  “Not proper?” he echoed. “Grace, I’ve kissed you. I’ve seen you naked. I’ve made love to you. Hell, I’m responsible for you needing new clothes. What could possibly be improper about my buying you a pretty dress or a pair of jeans?”

  She looked at the racks of clothing, wistfulness in her eyes. For more than three months, she’d lived in ill-fitted, unflattering hand-me-downs, and the prepregnancy wardrobe her father had destroyed, he would wager, hadn’t been any better. Like other women, she wanted pretty clothes. Unlike other women, she didn’t seem to feel she deserved them.

  While she stood there looking torn, he lifted a sweater from a display. It was emerald green and knitted from amazingly soft yarn. He held it to him, then lifted her hand, stroking her palm across the garment, rubbing it back and forth over his chest. “Do you like that?”

  Against her will, her expression softened. “Yes,” she admitted softly, freeing her hand, touching the sweater—and him—voluntarily.

  “Me, too.” As the heat spread from her fingertips outward across his skin, he closed his eyes and caught his breath. “And the sweater’s not bad, either,” he murmured in a strangled voice.

  Abruptly Grace snatched her hand away. He opened his eyes and gave her a rueful smile. “Aw, well, it felt good while it lasted.”

  Giving him a chastising look, she reached for the sweater. “You’re sure you don’t mind?”

  “I’m positive.”

  “Because I really don’t need—”

  He interrupted her. “Let me buy this for you, Grace. Just once, forget about what you need and let me give you something you want. Please.”

  After a moment, he released the sweater and she pulled it away. She added a pair of jeans from a nearby rack, then headed for the dressing room.

  Ten minutes later she returned, her face flushed, her hair mussed. Without a word, she added the clothes to the cart, then started toward the cash registers at the front of the store. Ethan lingered long enough to grab another sweater, this one rich royal purple, and a pair of black jeans, and slid them in with the rest of his purchases.

  From the store they went to the theater. He got more of a kick out of watching Grace watch the movie in the giant-screen, surround-sound theater than he did from watching the film. He couldn’t get over how many things she’d never done that most people took for granted—or how lucky he was to be the one to introduce her to all these firsts.

  He was planning another first—a leisurely dinner at a nice restaurant—after the movie, but when they left the theater, his plans changed. The sun that wouldn’t set for another hour or so was completely blocked by ominously dark clouds, and snow was falling in heavy flakes that stuck where they landed.

  Concern drew Grace’s brows together in a frown. “Do you think we can make it home?”

  “I don’t know.” Heartbreak was west and north of Tulsa, and if this storm was like most Oklahoma winter storms, it had come from the northwest. The last thing he wanted was to get Grace stuck somewhere in the middle of a snowstorm. “Let me find a pay phone and see what I can find out.”

  It took two calls to track down Leroy, watching a basketball game at a buddy’s house. It was snowing in Heartbreak, he said, but it had just started and the streets were clear. No accumulation, none expected, no problem.

  No problem, Ethan thought derisively two hours later, as the truck crept along a road that at times disappeared in the snow. They should have found a motel in Tulsa. He should have checked with the highway patrol. As soon as the snow began getting heavier, he should have turned back.

  “I should have called Guthrie,” he muttered aloud.

  From the other side of the frigid cab, with all their bags around her, Grace looked at him. Her face was pale, her eyes worried. She hadn’t said a word for the last twent
y miles, not when he’d nearly lost control on an icy bridge, not even when an oncoming car, driven by another complete fool, had fishtailed into their lane before sliding back into its own. Now she asked one simple question. “Why?”

  “Because he would have told me not to try it.”

  “You called Leroy. It wasn’t bad and wasn’t expected to get bad. Guthrie would have told you the same thing.”

  Ethan shook his head, feeling the pull in the taut muscles in his neck. “Guthrie doesn’t make mistakes. He would have known.”

  “The forecasters didn’t know. They predicted a sixty percent chance of light snow.”

  “Guthrie would have known.”

  In spite of her nerves, she smiled a bit. “Haven’t quite gotten over that big-brother hero worship, have you?”

  Heat flushed his face, providing welcome warmth. “It’s not hero worship. Just the facts. He knows everything. He’s always right.”

  “He’s not perfect.”

  “Yes, he is. Ask anyone.” Loosening one hand from the steering wheel, he flexed his fingers, shrugged, then rotated his head. He was stiff from head to damn-near-frozen toe. When he got home—if he got home—he was going to soak the rest of the night in a long, hot bath. “I should have turned back as soon as it started getting bad.”

  “We were already much closer to home. We’ll be there long before we could have reached the nearest motel back the other way.”

  “I should have—”

  “Ethan.” Plastic crinkled as she reached across the shopping bags to lay her hand on his forearm. “It’s not your fault. You can’t control the weather. You’re not responsible for the snow.”

  “No, but I’m responsible for us being out in it.”

  She sighed heavily, patted his arm, then drew back, falling silent once again.

  His eyes gritty and dry, Ethan focused hard on the road. At one point he thought they might have passed the Heartbreak town limits sign, though the snowfall was so heavy it was impossible to say for sure. If they had, they were safe. It was still a half mile to the town itself, and another mile and a half beyond that to Grace’s house, but there would be houses along the way where they could find shelter if necessary.

  Fortunately, it wasn’t necessary. About the time his fingers went numb from clutching the steering wheel so tightly, he caught a glimpse of Grace’s yellow house on the left. With her help, he found the driveway, pulled in and shut off the engine, then sat back with a loud sigh.

  She gave him a pleased, I-was-never-worried smile. “See? There was no reason for us to turn back. We’re home safe and sound.”

  We’re home. He liked the sound of that, though he knew she didn’t mean it the way he wanted to hear it. “You’re home,” he pointed out. “I’ve still got about ten miles to go.”

  Her smile transformed into worry. “Don’t be ridiculous. That’ll take you another hour, if you make it at all.”

  “Is that an invitation to stay here?”

  Her gaze darted away, came back, then left again. “I guess it is.”

  “Gee, thanks for the enthusiasm,” he said with a wry chuckle. “Let’s get inside.”

  He would have left the bags for later. She insisted on filling her arms with them. Leaving one arm free to wrap around her waist, he grabbed the rest, then they struggled to the porch through drifts that reached his knees.

  After stamping off the snow, they went inside. She headed for the kitchen to see about dinner while he carried the bags upstairs. On impulse, he took the linens into Grace’s new room and began making the bed. He was smoothing the flat sheet when she joined him.

  “You did a great job in here,” she remarked as she stuffed new pillows into new cases.

  “Thank you, ma’am.”

  “You could make a business out of this.”

  “Painting pregnant women’s bedrooms?”

  “Utilizing your varied skills.”

  “And be what? A handyman for hire?”

  “Basically, yes. A lot of people have neither the time nor the desire to do small jobs around the house. People like me don’t have the ability or anyone to ask for help.”

  “You can ask me.”

  “Right now, I can. But…” Suddenly the second pillow and case required all her attention, at least until he circled the bed and yanked them from her hands.

  “But you can’t ask if I’m not here, and maybe tomorrow I won’t be, or maybe the week after, or the week after that.” He shoved the pillow into the case, then tossed it on the bed, clamped his hands on his hips and glared at her. “And maybe I will be. Maybe I’ll be here next month and next year and ten years from now. Maybe I’ve run away for the last time.”

  “Maybe,” she murmured, but she wouldn’t look at him. Because she didn’t want him to see that she doubted him?

  “Damn it, Grace—” Gritting his teeth, he broke off. She had a right to doubt him. He’d never lived up to a responsibility in his life. She had no reason to believe that this one was any different.

  For a moment, she simply stood there, eyes downcast, hands clasped tightly over her stomach. Finally she said in a subdued voice, “I’m heating the chili I froze last week. It should be ready soon. Come on down when you’re finished.”

  She was at the door before he spoke. “I’m sorry, Grace.”

  “For what?”

  For getting angry. Expecting too much. Having a reputation. For not being the sort of man she deserved. For wanting her, anyway. “For everything.”

  “You can’t be sorry for everything. Everything isn’t your fault.” She hesitated in the doorway, then came back and stretched up to hug his neck. “Thank you for today,” she whispered before brushing a kiss to his jaw, then leaving.

  He touched his fingertips lightly to his jaw, then sank down on the bed, his head bowed, and though it was much too late for her to hear, he whispered, “You’re welcome.”

  Grace dished up the chili, filled two glasses with milk, then cut fresh-baked corn bread into squares before sitting down at the kitchen table.

  She’d hurt Ethan up there in the bedroom and hadn’t even had the decency to apologize for it. She wanted to trust him. She wanted to believe in him with every fiber of the desperate girl who’d once dreamed of a charming prince who would rescue her. But better people than she had tried to change him, with no success. He’d loved his mother, but had still let her down. He loved Guthrie fiercely, but still let him down. He didn’t love her. How could she believe he would always be there for her?

  Down the hall, a stair creaked beneath his weight, then she heard his footsteps. He came into the kitchen, but he didn’t sit down. Instead he reached for the phone mounted on the wall near the door. “I’d better call Guthrie and let him know I won’t be home,” he said quietly.

  She made no effort to pretend that she wasn’t listening to his end of the conversation. He kept the call short—told his brother that he’d just gotten back from Tulsa and wasn’t going to risk the last ten miles home. When Guthrie asked where he was staying, Ethan hesitated, then hedged. “I’m at a buddy’s,” he said, then went on without a pause. “I’ll be home as soon as the roads are clear.”

  As he sat down, she bit back the urge to tartly point out that she most certainly was not his “buddy.” But what right did she have to point out anything? She was the one who’d insisted on secrecy. What other answer could he have given without outright lying?

  They ate without conversation, beyond a couple of halfhearted compliments on the food from Ethan. They did the dishes in silence, too, and were facing an evening of TV-watching the same way, she thought, until the storm once again changed their plans.

  They were halfway out of the kitchen when the lights went out. The refrigerator stopped mid-hum, and the electric blower on the heating system cut off mid-blow. Ethan bumped into her, steadied her, then rested his hand on her shoulder. “The power lines are probably down. This sort of wet snow is heavy. You’ll probably lose some branches, too.�
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  As if to punctuate his words, into the stillness came the sharp crack of a breaking limb. The peach tree out back, she thought. Fortunately, none of the trees close to the house were tall enough to do any damage, and the trees big enough to send a branch crashing through the roof were too far away.

  “Do you have any candles?”

  “I have oil lamps. Let me get them.” She felt her way into the dining room, grateful for once for her father’s rigid habits. All her life two lamps, their bases filled with oil, their wicks neatly trimmed, had sat on the sideboard, with a box of matches in the top drawer. She lit one and handed it to Ethan, then lit the second.

  Back in the hallway, he paused at the bottom of the stairs. “If you don’t mind, I think I’m going to bed.”

  “It was a long day, with a long drive back. You must be tired.”

  He nodded once. “I’ll take your old room—”

  “No. That twin bed’s too small for you. Take the new one.”

  “I don’t mind—”

  “Please. I’ll get you some extra blankets.” She led the way upstairs, gave him two of the three extra blankets, then turned to leave. His quiet words stopped her in her tracks.

  “This bed’s big enough for two.”

  She’d noticed that every time she’d looked at it. She’d thought about it when she’d picked out the sheets, when she’d matched the comforter. She’d wondered if she would ever share it with anyone else. Now he’d just offered her the chance. Damned if she wasn’t afraid to take it.

  She risked a quick, apologetic look, said, “Good night,” and went to her own room, closing the door firmly behind her as if the solid wood could stop her from changing her mind.

  When he’d brought the shopping bags upstairs, he’d left them on her bed. By lamplight, she unpacked each one, stacking the baby things on the desk, hanging her new green sweater and jeans in the closet. They looked so pretty and stylish among her secondhand clothes. After the baby was born, she would expand her wardrobe one pretty outfit at a time, she decided, until no one remembered her lifetime of shapeless, colorless, lifeless dresses.